Last Sunday, Eric came into my bedroom with bright red cheeks. I knew from when Nate had fifth disease a few years ago that this was the distinguishing symptom, and sure enough, he had a low-grade fever and a rash. I knew from previous experience that fifth disease isn’t serious, just annoying and itchy. But my experience with fifth disease didn’t tell me what it would do to blood sugar in a child with diabetes. Everything is uncharted territory, these days! I googled it, of course, but didn’t get much in the way of specifics — some comments on a childrenwithdiabetes.org chat room that gave conflicting info on what had happened with other people’s kids. So I had to just wait and see.
Well, this was the damnedest illness I have ever seen. First of all, unlike Nate who had the rash all over for about 24 hours, Eric's rash was... how do I put this? MOBILE. He'd have it on his face. Then a half hour later, it would be gone from his face and appear on his legs. Then it left his legs and showed up on his back. It moved around from spot to spot. Sometimes it disappeared entirely for as long as an hour, only to burst forth anew all of a sudden. It was downright weird. And the fever? 101 at 10 a.m., normal at 12, 99.6 at 2, then normal, then up then down then up then down. Blood sugar, too, was a rollercoaster. He'd be going along in normal range for hours, then BOOM, shoot up to 300. I'd give him insulin, he'd come back down, stay steady at 100 or 120, and then I'd check him and he'd be in the stratosphere again. Didn't seem to bear any relation to what or when he ate something, either. It was just plain FREAKY.
This went on for about 3 days, then the rash seemed to clear up and a day later, his blood sugars started staying in normal territory all the time, and any highs he had were very clearly related to something identifiable (the extra chocolate milk he had when I wasn't looking, and the crimped site I took off him yesterday morning). But you know what?? I am not very excited about fifth disease. I like a nice, predictable illness. Thankfully he is now immune...